New mobile IDE wanted - any takers?

[Richard Russell]

I have received a complaint that the mobile (Android / iOS / in-browser) edition of BBCSDL is "useless". Although the complainant does not go into any detail about what leads him to this conclusion, I am guessing that it is related to the way I have tackled the limitations of a touchscreen interface (no keyboard, no mouse, usually). I deliberately chose a 'minimal' interface which didn't clutter the display, especially for use on a small phone screen.

When the screen real-estate is less restricted, as in the case of a tablet rather than a phone, an interface more like that used on desktop platforms could no doubt be devised. There would still be fundamental limitations, such as not being able to run the IDE and BASIC program in separate windows (and processes), because Android and iOS don't support this, but it could be more compatible.

There's no reason in principle why the mobile editions shouldn't come with a choice of IDE, just as the desktop editions do (Andy Parkes's BBCEdit and my SDLIDE). So this is a call for anybody who might be interested to develop and submit an alternative IDE for tablets (if it's also usable on a phone all to the good).

This could either be developed from scratch or be based on an adaptation of one of the existing IDEs: BBCEdit.bbc, SDLIDE.bbc and touchide.bbc (which are supplied with all the desktop editions of BBCSDL, in the examples/tools directory). They are all written in 'portable' (and therefore relatively simple) BBC BASIC code, so are easily within the reach of any competent BBC BASIC programmer.

Is anybody interested?

[Richard Russell]

Is anybody interested?

I'm still very keen on the possibility of a new, or alternative, mobile IDE. It really upsets me that there is such a degree of unhappiness with the current apps, but I am not well enough (and won't be) to do anything about it myself. Isn't there somebody out there who can do a better job?